Space and Light: Drawing Tuesday at Science Museum and EDAM week 9

Drawing Tuesday  last week was  in the 'Flight' gallery at the Science Museum. I've drawn there before, and  again enjoyed  trying to capture the fragility of the very early planes. It was the monoplane made by John Stringfellow that attracted me this time 

I was particularly interested in trying to capture the delicate patterns of the worn fabric (  fine crosshatch in pencil with use of fine Tombow eraser). It reminded me of Rauschenberg's  'Jammers ' and his transfer  drawings. 

Before I made it to the 'Flight' gallery however I was in 'Space' one ,  gathering ideas for my own model of a spaceship for the current EDAM project.  It was too dark and noisy with excited small children  to stay and draw  !

  This one ( heading to Mercury?) was covered in quilted fabrics ! 

Realising  my model  from last week was too complex, I brought in fresh supplies : a juice bottle  and 2 Teapigs Chamomile tea  boxes  ( expensive but   worth it, completely  different to the usual bags of dust ) 

After a quick scribble in my sketchbook  to work out rough idea, I worked hard measuring and   using set squares  to construct the drawing  in pencil. 

But having shown I could do it 'properly',  I was encouraged  by Ute to go bolder  with compressed charcoal. Now that's  more like it, charcoal is much more forgiving and the layers of corrections, trying to find the shape , add to it. 

 I then had fun with  the lighting set up, placing my model  in different positions  and angles to see the effect of light on form and the shadows.

    'Teapigs'  kept  reminding me of 'Pigs in Space' on the Muppets ( I used to love how they looked up every time there was an announcement) 

'Live-a-little'  ( wine carrier from Waitrose) 

And  who knew an eggbox could look so monumental ! 

 I never got round to using the 1:50  scale  figures  with my model ,  but then then they don't particularly look like they're dressed for space ( maybe stewards?) Like their shadows though , they look  so different  to the figures themselves.   Searching for small figures online, I found a link to this film 'Dot', tiniest stop-motion film ( link here). Enjoy !